The Sand Castle

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– The Management

Can you name the person who said the following?

“Like most Americans, I find it hard to shake the feeling these days that our democracy has gone seriously awry. It’s not simply that a gap exists between our professed ideals as a nation and the reality we witness every day.

“No, what’s troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics — the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problems.

“And yet publicly, it’s difficult to find much soul-searching or introspection on either side of the divide, or even the slightest admission of responsibility for the gridlock. What we hear instead … are deflections of criticisms and assignments of blame. Depending on your tastes, our condition is the natural result of radical conservatism or perverse liberalism, Tom DeLay or Nancy Pelosi, big oil or greedy trial lawyers, religious zealots or gay activists, Fox News or The New York Times.

“In distilled form, though, the explanations of both the right and the left have become mirror images of each other. They are stories of conspiracy, of America being hijacked by an evil cabal. Like all good conspiracy theories, both tales contain just enough truth to satisfy those predisposed to believe in them, without admitting any contradictions that might shake up those assumptions. Their purpose is not to persuade the other side but to keep their bases agitated and assured of the rightness of their respective causes — and lure just enough new adherents to beat the other side into submission.

“Of course, there is another story to be told, by the millions of Americans who are going about their business every day. They are on the job or looking for work, starting businesses, helping their kids with their homework, and struggling with high gas bills, insufficient health insurance, and a pension that some bankruptcy court somewhere has rendered unenforceable. They are by turns hopeful and frightened about the future. And because politics seems to speak so little to what they are going through — because they understand that politics today is a business and not a mission, and what passes for debate is little more than spectacle — they turn inward, away from the noise and rage and endless chatter.

“A government that truly represents these Americans — that truly serves these Americans — will require a different kind of politics.

“We will need to understand just how we got to this place, this land of warring factions and tribal hatreds. And we will need to remind ourselves, despite all our differences, just how much we share: common hopes, common dreams, a bond that will not break.”

Good stuff.

The source is Barak Obama. It’s from his book, “The Audacity of Hope”. We haven’t seen how these words manifest in practice, but they are fine words.

Drinking tea while gazing down the neon streets of the chrysanthemum city. I am a stranger in this land. A white devil of the barbarian West. I smile to the waiters and gaze out at the endless throng of people bustling through the streets. For the first time in a very long time I feel truly lost. I think about the reasons that brought me here and they now seem so removed from me. It would be easy for me to believe that my whole life prior to now was a dream. I have no connection to my life here. The metropolis of the East surrounds me with noise.

Then my phone rings. I flip it open with a quick “Hello” and hear my daughter’s voice respond with a cheery greeting. She chatters on about school, dance class, and what’s been happening in my absence and the slow smile that creeps across my face reaches through my heart and down to the foundations of time. Just like that I have been reconnected to the world. I tell her I love her and that I’ll be home soon. We exchange other words but they don’t matter. The contact has been made. We hang up and I depart the tea shop. The city holds no sway over me now. Its noise breaks around me like cobwebs and the stares of strangers hold no heat.

The world is not an objective thing, nor is the mind totally subjective. There is a continuum of reality. In this neon maze I have become more real than the world around me. The road rises to meet me. It knows me.

“But it’s a trap. If you look down that road it is so obvious where it leads. Consider the horrors that history holds. I know it’s not easy. None of you know me well enough to say it was easy for me. You don’t know my life, you only know my name and my race. You don’t know about the times I went to jail or the 14 year old white boy prostitute I will never forget, or why. Or the older boys who tried to convince me to help them rape the little girl who was my friend when I was just a child myself. You don’t know the shames that dwell within me, the things that burn. I don’t know yours either. You’re not Whites, you’re not Jews. You have names that I know and identities that I will never know. Identities that nobody can help you with. Yeah, I know it’s hard. And I’m not brave either. It’s just that the alternative is so much worse.”

Mr. J.: Yo. Dude, who the hell is that?

Mr. D.: Not sure, he was dead when I got here.

Mr. J.: What about the new guy?

Mr. S.: Oi say we chop ‘im up inta little bits, fry ‘im up in sum awlive oil with gahlic ‘n gingah, and serve ‘im wit’ toasted prawns!

Mr. D.: …

Mr. J.: …

Mr. D.: … yeah. Well he’s new isn’t he.

Even now I hear them. Like rats in the walls they scurry around my brain. Poisoning my thoughts. God! how they fidget. I had thought to drown them in drink, or perhaps in a stronger brew. A concoction of pharmacological potency that would render numb my ego.

But there is no escape. At the very edge of my limits I can make them out still. In fact it’s worse. There I can begin to discern words. There is nowhere I can go that they will not find me not hound me not waken my drowsing self to the concentrated horror of seeing the world as it truly is. What we have revealed. What we have discovered. These are just crumbs of the universe. Such immensity is the home for intelligences other than us. Things of alien urge and twisted intent, only half real by our standards, by our pathetically limited science.

Who could have ever dreamt that they would not need the poor currency of physical presence. They have pursued paths of the mind unimaginable to the sapien race. Between stars they flit like ephemeral bats their conciousnesses circling ultraviolet stars, drawn to the life of our warm sphere. They are among us. They live in the world beneath the waking day. Only in the dark night of dreams do we catch the occaisional glimpse. A quick glance that brings us rapidly to waking screams covered in the sweat of instincive flight! Ai! They will not stop! They have seen themselves reflected in my eyes!

They come for me. The circle slowly, like wolves around wounded prey. I don’t know how it got so dark in here, so quiet. I can barely hear the tapping of the keys as I try to record this moment. There is an abyss opening beneath me that I cannot see or escape. Soon they will pull me down.

What is that on the ceiling fvf

dsS fdsa fsafga;lm ///////////////////////////

Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood! Oh God the blood!